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Letters to Jud author at Barnes and Noble bookfair in Springfield, Missouri

Author Don Alderman and his wife, Colleen, participated in a bookfair at Barnes and Noble Booksellers in Springfield, Missouri, where Alderman discussed and signed copies of Letters to Jud. A portion of the book sales will benefit school libraries in the Republic School District.

Copies of Letters to Jud are now available at the Barnes and Noble store, which is located at 3055 South Glenstone, Springfield Missouri.

Don and Colleen Alderman joined members of the Republic, Missouri, Historical Society to present a $1,000 check to Jeff Nene, public relations director for Convoy of Hope at the relief organization's world headquarters in Springfield, Missouri. Accepting the donation, Nene said that the gift, through Convoy of Hope, would actually purchase $7,000 of food, water and emergency supplies for Joplin residents still struggling to recover from the storm that leveled large areas of Joplin, Missouri, earlier in 2011.

Convoy of Hope is a faith-based, international organization that provides disaster response, nutritional programs and sustainability projects on a world-wide basis. The organization is considered an "initial responder" in disaster relief, quickly and efficiently providing resources such as water, ice, food, shelter and emergency supplies to survivors of disaster.

In June, 2011, Letters to Jud author Don Alderman donated 60 copies of the book to the Republic (Missouri) Historical Society in a joint effort to raise money to aid victims of the massive, EF-5 tornado that ravaged Joplin in far southwest Missouri. The historical society made copies of the book available to Republic residents in exchange for donations to the disaster relief fund, and by October all but two of the books had been purchased, raising $1,000.

Kirkus Reviews, a leading national book review service billed as "the world's toughest book critics," recently awarded the book its Kirkus Star — a designation assigned to books its editors determine to be of remarkable merit. Less than 10 percent of the books reviewed by Kirkus receive this designation. The Kirkus review of Letters to Jud said, in part: "A World War II-era small town sparkles to life in this luminous memoir ... Alderman also sketches an enchanting portrait of the close-knit town and the lonesome farmsteads of the Missouri Ozarks surrounding it, as seen through the eyes of a boy growing to manhood ... Alderman's lyrical prose infuses these vignettes with evocative details ... and a quiet humor ... A funny, moving, finely wrought remembrance of a lost Middle America."

Click the Reader Comments tab to see the full text of the Kirkus review.

Writer’s Digest, a national magazine for writers and authors, has awarded Letters to Jud an Honorable Mention in the Mainstream/Literary Fiction category in the magazine’s 18th Annual International Self-Published Book Awards. The book will be promoted in the March/April 2011 issue of Writer’s Digest.

Since 1920, Writer’s Digest has chronicled the culture of the modern writer, and continues this tradition through relevant first-person essays, interviews with best-selling authors and profiles of emerging talent. The magazine also features practical technique articles, and tips and exercises on fiction, nonfiction, poetry and the business side of writing and publishing.

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